AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Yeah. She knew something was up. He’d learned the hard way just how brutally sharp her perception was.
“We are here today to bear witness to the first of the Betrothal Games. This trial, like the others to come, shall be one that exemplifies the first credo of our monarchy.” Beside the king, Pascal unfurled a burgundy banner decorated with moonstone embellishments. In the center of the tapestry flowed swirling opalescent text proclaiming, “With power, we run.”
Running. Shit. His tired and barely healed calf tightened further in protest.
“I have devised a course that shall test the endurance and speed of each of these chosen competitors: Lord Raff, leader of the western lycans; his second, Sir Byron; and Bronze, the demigod.” His name was underlined with a mouthful of scorn usually reserved for tax collectors and door-to-door pest control salesmen. “The objective is simple: retrieve the prized relic of our monarchy from the anointed table in under sixty seconds.”
Wait . . . the relic was here?
It was a testament to just how fucked up his situation had become that Bronze had entirely missed the damn thing sitting right in front of him. Sure as shit, though, the very moonstone relic he’d last gotten a good look at in the den’s clinic sat nestled within a perfect plum-colored velvet cushion on a small table directly in front of where the king and Clara sat.
Bronze and the two other competitors stood at the far sides of the arena. Lord Raff and all his two-hundred-and-seventy-five pounds of silent ego anchored the left position, eyeing both the relic and Clara. The male didn’t pump his fists or work the crowd for applause. The rank boredom in his expression was tinged with far too much smugness for Bronze’s liking, and that was saying something. To Bronze’s right was Byron, who had already squatted down into a wrestler’s stance, right leg behind him and arms out front, ready to tackle and torture whatever got in his way. And then there was Bronze, who was operating at an appallingly poor percentage even by mortal standards.
That relic was practically glowing at him, begging him to come snatch it up and take it far away from anyone and anything who didn’t have a one-way trip to the Empyrean on their bucket list. All he had to do was run faster than two lycans—two bulky lycans who, on a good day, would only be slightly slower than Bronze.
Unfortunately, it was a far cry from being a good day.
Bronze surveyed the field. Were they just supposed to run across the dirt and grab the thing? Or was the objective to all arrive at once and wrestle it free? If that was the case, he’d fail before he’d even get his rear foot off the ground.
But why the hell would the king have them just doing relay races? Wasn’t there more to a lycan’s endurance than that? Or was it the speed that mattered, not the distance?
Dammit. He didn’t have time to figure this shit out.
The king turned over an hourglass, and as soon as the pink sand began to funnel through the glass waist, a horn blared.
A blond blur overtook Bronze’s periphery. Byron was jetting across the dirt, elbows bent at ninety degrees, palms flat, thumbs up, arms poised to pump and propel him toward the relic. Raff bolted as well but took a different route, one that carried him away from the soil spray of Byron’s kickbacks.
Bronze should move. He needed to move, but none of this made any sense.
Think, asshole, and do it fast.
Byron was already halfway across the arena, his stride confident and his momentum gaining. Bronze jogged forward, hoping the action would at least shake loose the thing that was bothering him so much about the way the ground looked. Beneath his feet, the packed earth was solid and easy to get traction on, but up ahead, the soil seemed . . . different.
Bronze glanced at the hourglass. One-third of the sand had fallen already, soon to be half. He picked his heels up and pushed against the screaming in his leg from the gift the coyote left behind.
The explosion catapulted a plume of dirt high above him. Debris dimmed the sun’s meager offerings through the partly cloudy sky.
Bronze skidded to a halt, nearly twisting his ankle. “What the fuck?”
Byron had been thrown back ass over tea kettle, his legs spiraling in a cartwheel midair worthy of a Cirque du Soleil acrobat. He landed a few feet behind Bronze with an unceremonious thud, while Bronze and Lord Raff had both taken a knee and covered their heads against the spray of soil and stones. Throat-choked grunts tore out of Bronze as more debris scraped trenches into his skin.
Hushed silence settled over the arena as the shock of their situation began to sink in.
Explosives. In the field. But how was that possible? Every bomb he knew of, and many he and his brothers had fucking made over the years, required metal detonators or, at the very least, metal casings.
Byron’s low groans carried over the settled dust. Bronze risked a glance back and was surprised to see the male still had all his limbs attached. Oh, there was plenty of blood, and the lower half of his right leg was definitely facing the wrong way, but if the dude had stepped on something he shouldn’t have, there wouldn’t be a leg at all. Unless . . .
The sand had cleared the hourglass’ halfway point now. Then Bronze locked gazes with Lord Raff, who not only observed the time as well but was also a good twenty feet from the relic compared to Bronze’s fifty.
Both males pushed to their feet, but neither of them moved. The field was a hot mess of debris and churned earth. If there was something buried under there liable to blow, there was no way to tell based on how the ground had been impacted from the first explosion. But the relic was still there, sitting on its little velvet fainting couch like the world hadn’t just blown up within the three-rail horse fence perimeter they were trapped in.
Bronze lifted one foot, more to test the vibrations in his leg than to see where he could safely put it down again, when a sharp glare nearly blinded him.
Huh?
Up ahead, Lord Raff was toe-stepping it from one foot to the next, making slow but sustained progress toward the relic.
Shit! Bronze was torn between forward momentum and the clarity that had eluded him since he’d first gotten there, the answers dancing just out of reach like a snowflake.
